Black Bird
by Omnipots
Summary: It has been six years since Tim Drake has been seen alive. Damian remembers the fiery chaos around him and the way the docks exploded in front of him, but does he really remember what happened to Tim Drake?


It had been six years since Tim Drake had been seen. To be specific, six years since Tim Drake had been seen _alive._

Today marked the sixth year anniversary of that infernal fire. Damian remembered this well, at least until his resources and strength were exhausted by shrapnel, explosions, and falling debris. Damian had grown much in those past six years. His eyes had become more severe and the skin across his mouth was taught as if he desired as to never show emotion. But that was indeed everything one needed to learn that he did, indeed, have emotions.

Perhaps Damian's poker face had been altered to a place in which it was more a mosaic rather than a porcelain mask. Perhaps, Damian was no longer the boy he once was. Once driven by rage, then a need to be accepted, to finally attain acceptance among those he admired and, well, cared for? It was more than he would have ever expected.

_Not that he would let them know._

But he couldn't think about where he was, without thinking about where Drake was. Would Drake had ever accepted him? Would Drak-_Tim_ have ever congratulated him? As Damian marched on, seemingly oblivious to the harsh wintery winds beating against his face, he could no longer see the road which he walked on, but the road in which he had tread many years ago.

He inhaled the air, infused with marine salt, and turned to sit down. Before he closed his eyes he found his thoughts drifting. In his blurred and damaged memories he could see fire, but all he could feel the water cool around his skin. He could hear the explosions, but he could not see the stars. Before the explosions he could remember a face, cloaked by shadows and framed by dangerously flickering lights. He couldn't remember words, but he could remember what it felt like to be saved.

To be saved by someone you _thought_ you hated.

To be guilty.

_To be alone. _

* * *

Stephanie wasn't bored. She just happened to act like she was. On second thought, maybe she was just lethargic past the point of help or relief. _Or_ maybe she really was bored. By that point she gave up on the point she had been trying to make herself. She figured that she was better at making a point when she wasn't arguing within the confines of her own head.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, somewhere where she would forget this fleeting thought, she let herself make that connection. The connection in which she remembered Tim always argued with himself and somehow he usually always came out as the victor, for who else was really in his head? It still hurt. She wasn't going to deny it. Tim was an important part of her life. She didn't care whether what they had was romantic or platonic. Either way, he took a chunk out of her. A necessary chunk.

Apparently it wasn't that hard to tell when she was thinking about him, either.

"Stephanie?" A hoarse, but normally dark and silky voice, called from the shadows. She wheeled the chair around abruptly surprised by the fact Damian had been sulking over in the less lighted areas of the Bat-Cave.

"Being a creeper, are you?" The question was light enough, but her voice hitched on the word creeper.

She used to call Tim her little creeper.

But that was the past. _And_ Damian was her present.

"No. I was observing you."

"Oh. So that's different than being a stalker, Dami?" Stephanie was getting better at this. Better at hiding things.

Stephanie watched as Damian's eyebrows rose in speculation and as he ceased to question Stephanie any longer. He merely took a seat next to her just listening to her just exist. If the look he was giving her could be transcribed into words it would be transcribed into this: "I like that you exist, Brown. I really do."

But Damian was never one for words. Unless he just happened to be smiting someone. _Then he was all for it. _

"Okay then. Don't talk. Not like I can't talk up a storm between me, myself, and I for the next how-many-ever-hours we have to kill."

In a random but pre-mediated succession of movements Stephanie shook her hair in Damian's face. She really hadn't intended for her hair to wind up in his mouth. When she looked back she honestly didn't expect or anticipate the facial expression Damian was making. He was smiling.

_Smiling._

And if he could smile? She would try her freaking hardest to.


End file.
